Lawmakers split over whether cuts go too far, not far enough

Feb. 22, 2013

Written by

Deirdre Shesgreen

Gannett

However, the Ohio lawmakers said the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts, set to take effect Friday, are bad policy that could hurt the economy and harm Ohio’s defense industry. They are among the few in Congress holding out hope for a last-minute agreement to soften the blow of the $85 billion in spending reductions slated for this year’s budget.

The consensus ends there.

Portman, of Terrace Park, co-sponsored legislation in the previous congressional session that would have blocked the hit to defense spending, instead calling for alternative savings through a pay freeze for federal workers and a 5 percent reduction in their ranks, done through attrition.

That bill went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Portman now is working with other lawmakers on a proposal that would give the Obama administration some flexibility to make the cuts in a more targeted way, going after duplicative or low-priority programs instead of making across-the-board reductions.

Although he doesn’t like the way the cuts are structured, Portman has said he does not support delaying them.

“We have a $3.7 trillion budget, and this notion that we can’t make these reductions in spending is unbelievable,” he said. “We must move forward on already agreed upon deficit reduction, but I would like to give the administration the flexibility to target the spending cuts, so as not to blindly gut the military and hamper operations.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to push for a vote on legislation that would replace the $85 billion in cuts with a combination of tax increases and different cuts to defense and agriculture programs.

Kaptur, of Toledo, said that is a sound approach. She called the cuts “draconian” and said they will deal a major blow to Ohio’s economy.

“You’re talking about the furloughs of thousands of people. You’re talking about contracts not being signed for all kinds of services,” she said. “Everyone’s operating without a budget.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, also expressed support for Reid’s plan.

“Sen. Brown supports a balanced plan to reduce the deficit that would replace the sequester with a mix of spending cuts and targeted revenue increases that doesn’t threaten our national security, disproportionately burden those who serve our nation, or undermine Medicare and Social Security,” said Brown’s spokeswoman, Lauren Kiluk.

However, Republicans in the House and Senate have said Reid’s proposed tax hikes are a nonstarter.

“We’ve done the tax thing,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Columbia-Tusculum, referring to the year-end congressional deal with the White House that allowed income tax rates to go up for wealthy households.

Reps. Bob Gibbs, R-Lakeville, and Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, echoed that sentiment. They noted the GOP-controlled House passed legislation in the previous congressional session that would have made deeper reductions to domestic programs and used that money to avert the defense cuts.

The GOP bill, which never gained traction in the Senate, would have sliced funding for food stamps, low-income heating assistance, and health care for people who are. It also would have unraveled elements of the federal health care reform law and the Wall Street overhaul.

“Sequestration is not the way I would have preferred to cut spending,” said Stivers. “I would rather pick programs that we think are unnecessary and bloated and cut those.”

However, with lawmakers at an impasse concerning an alternative deficit-reduction plan, he and other Ohio Republicans lawmakers say Congress should let the $85 billion in cuts move forward.

“What I’d prefer to see is a replacement of the defense cuts with cuts to other parts of the government,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, said in an interview earlier this year. “But short of that, the only thing worse than defense cuts are no cuts at all.”

The across-the-board cuts are “not totally responsible,” Gibbs said. “But if you keep kicking the can down the road, the disaster that’s coming is a lot more serious.”

He and others said the domestic cuts will not spark the doom-and-gloom scenarios President Barack Obama and some Democrats have suggested.

“Is a 5.9 percent cut of discretionary spending going to end the world? No,” Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, said after a recent meeting with the Granville Area Chamber of Commerce.

He told chamber members many departments had their budgets inflated by the economic stimulus legislation passed shortly after Obama took office 2009 and that the reductions enacted by the sequester would cut into only the money added by that law, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

“If you include the sequester, over a period of five years they’re still getting increases,” he said of the Department of Commerce’s budget.

Still, Tiberi said House Republicans might put forward a proposal that would allow the president to decide how the cuts are spread — similar to the measure Portman and others are working on in the Senate.

“For example, is it as important to have the national parks open as it is to have air traffic controllers? … That would be an example of giving the administration some additional flexibility,” Tiberi said.